


The Stone Tablet

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Series: Aileen Westbrook [6]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Adventure, Desert Treasure, Gen, World Guardian - Freeform, questfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Bricks, Aileen and Asgarnia meet up in Al-Kharid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stone Tablet

          In Al-Kharid, a maze of whitewashed sandstone houses at the edge of a desert, I met a Misthalinian named Asgarnia Smith. He called himself an archaeologist, but was in reality a tomb raider. He had spent the previous year scouting the Kharidian Peninsula for buried riches, with little success. He had been on the point of giving up, when by chance — and through means he refused to disclose — he had obtained a stone tablet he believed showed the way to immense, ancient treasure.

          It was the tablet that had brought us together. Smith had vaguely understood the contents of the inscription, but had sent it to the Museum of Varrock for an exact translation. The work had been carried out by Dr Balando, an old acquaintance of mine, who had then hired me to take the tablet and the transcript back to Kharid. Together with the package he had given me a letter of reference, recommending me for archaeological field work and assistant duties. Smith was looking for an aide, and my friend figured that someone competent could as well make records on the crypts he desecrated.

          Through correspondence we had arranged a rendezvous in a tea bar near the city’s gate. It was a cramped, dimly lit place, little more than a room, with a pervasive smell of mint and honey in the air. With its low, vaulted ceiling and floor of cracked mosaic tiles, the place looked as ancient as the men who clustered around the squat little tables nursing tiny, steaming glasses. We were the only foreigners present, but no-one spared us a second glance.

          Asgarnia was a lean, sun-parched man of maybe thirty-five, whose sharp eyes kept moving from my face to the doorway behind me. Living in the desert had creased his face prematurely and streaked his beard with grey. He spoke with a distinct South Varrock accent, but apart from that, I never learned much about his past.

          After we had introduced ourselves, the first thing he wanted was to see the package. He opened it then and there, on the tea-sticky table, and began to read the translation. I said nothing while his eyes scanned the pages, but my thoughts wandered to the sheaf of papers in my backpack. There, nested between  _A Primer of the Ancient Tongue_ , was a copy of the transcript and two neat etchings of the tablet. I had made them before departing, telling myself that a backup might prove useful.

          Smith read the translation, then Dr Balando’s notes on it, and finally my letter of recommendation. When he was done, both the papers and the tablet vanished inside his overcoat, and he leaned across the table.

          “So,” he said. “You are interested in coming along?”

          “That’s right,” I answered. “I’ll work for you, and I’ll work for the museum. I’ll help you with whatever comes along, and make records on anything we find for them. They pay my wages, you pay the travel expenses.” This earned a nod.

          “We’re going to the desert,” he continued. “We’ll live in tents, live outdoors, no comforts, food and water are strictly rationed. The days are scorching, the nights are cold. There will be wild animals, and there is a chance we come across some unsavoury people. How are you with all that?”

          “I have no problem with all that,” I said. “I lived in Rellekka, in the Fremennik lands. I used to run runes at the Ourania altar in Ardougne. I just came back from Morytania. I can handle bad conditions, I can handle no comforts, and I can handle myself.” Smith’s eyebrows raised slightly at the mention of Morytania, but he didn’t pursue the topic. He was going through a checklist, and had no time for diversions.

          “The place we are going is in the Lower Peninsula, south of the Kharidian Range. The journey there alone might take several months, depending on the conditions. If the weather turns bad, we might have to wait for weeks.”

          “I’m not pressed for time,” I said, truthfully.

          “Good, he replied. “Is there anything you want to ask?”

          “Yes,” I said, “very much. Where, exactly, are we going? South of the mountains, but where in there, and what for?” I didn’t want to let on just how much I knew. I had read Dr Balando’s notes, and had done a bit of independent research on the matter. The writing was a degenerate form of the mysterious Ancient Tongue, written in a simplified version of the alphabet of the Zarosians, a lost civilisation that had dwelled by the Salve in the Second Age. The tablet was of Kharidian granite, and had formerly been in the possession of a tribe of local nomads. Its text described, in ambivalent and symbolic terms, a treasure concealed in some kind of a fortress, and guarded by unnameable powers. Smith knew at least as much, and I wanted to know what he was ready to impart. Whether he trusted me could be a good indicator of whether I could trust him.

          “The place we are going to,” he said, voice dropping low, “is a pyramid. Jaldraocht, the locals call it, dating back to the Second Age. The tablet mentions a treasure sealed away in a fortified building in the desert, and the man I obtained it from made a very clear implication that the building in question is the pyramid. It stood to reason. No-one has ever investigated the place properly. The Menaphites have some strange superstitions about it, and it is said to be entirely untouched by grave robbers.”

          I nodded and sipped my tea. To tell the truth, I was surprised by his candidness. I had expected him to withhold information, or to cook up lies about scientific interest, but apparently he was less of a crook than I had thought. It was a good thing to know about someone I was about to be stuck with, for an indeterminate time, in harsh conditions. I moved in for the final question.

          “And if there is a treasure, and it is at your pyramid, and we somehow manage to obtain it?”

          “You get your cut,” Smith said outright. I decided to not start on percentages. That was an argument for another time, perhaps when we knew if we could get to the pyramid at all. I drained my glass, letting the sharp taste of spearmint linger on my tongue.

          “Alright,” I said, at last. “When are we leaving?”

 


End file.
